Part Two: A conversation with Amaryll Schwertner

Here is Part Two of my conversation with Amaryll Schwertner, chef-partner of Boulettes Larder and the upcoming Bouli Bar. Portions have been edited for length. For Part One, click here.

PL: Pouring concrete and searching for cooks is the side of being a chef not many people talk about.

AS: And maybe we don’t want to talk about it. It’s not what people want. It’s not what’s important when you’re hungry, and it’s not what makes the business go. There may be forums for talking about these things, but the media certainly has not wanted to talk about them. Over the years, I’ve said some controversial things about cooking schools — and the way that they churn kids out into this market completely largely unprepared — and people don’t want to talk or read about that. They just want to read about the glamorous part.

What are some of those other aspects of the restaurant industry that people should be talking about more?

I’m fully realizing that I used to be younger and more fearless, and now I am who I am. So I don’t want to say that you shouldn’t be young and fearless and full of bravado and tattoos — and every other big expression of being human and young. I totally get it, and it’s wonderful. It’s going to push things along, in whatever direction. I don’t want to think about that, so much as there’s that, and then there’s this. There’s that kind of energy and there’s this kind of energy [at Boulettes].

Eggs at the ready. Photo: The Chronicle/John Storey

What we all have in common is that we must produce something that people are seduced by, and it’s going to make them feel energetic or good, or it’s going to make them feel like they just licked salt. It’s going to be an experience — and that’s the connection that we all have.

Bringing yourself to a place where you just acknowledge that there are some important things beyond what you think. That’s it. That’s maybe what we should all talk about now.

You made some implications to it earlier; how does celebrity play into it?

We’ve given this celebrity part a lot of attention. Now, people like Rene Redzepi and other people like that are really starting to think about what we do, how it’s important and how it can affect change. But I think the media is still a little bit consumed with selling a product — as the media will always be; it’s their job. They have to sell a product and the way to sell that product is to draw a much bigger halo around someone than is deserved.

It’s very interesting, and often frustrating, to see what sells — or gets clicks — in the media these days.

I think that we’re in this funny relationship as chefs over the last 15 years. Chefs got co-opted by it, and now they have to figure out a way to disengage a little bit from that believing their own press. I’ve never had a publicist. I’ve been working 30 years, leading huge restaurants in San Francisco, and I’ve never really gone there. I’ve always been happy that the recognition that we’ve gotten hasn’t been bought and paid for, but at the same time, I see the value of it … All this while, I’ve pretty much put my head down and I go inside myself to work, rather than out there to work. So it’s a different way of being. It’s not right or wrong; just different.

How does it change?

We could up the conversation a little bit by taking it out of ourselves. How are we going to attract more young people? I can’t even find a cook and we’re opening a restaurant. That’s a formidable challenge.

How are we going to find those young people who are themselves, and are not just coming to you because they think you’re going to bring a particular shine to their resume? How do we find the people that know which end of the knife to pick up, but they just haven’t been shown how to use that tool in a powerful way? They don’t know that the touch or the sharpness of their blade is going to literally make something taste different. They don’t know anything like that. They know lots of other things. They’re pursuing something else, which unfortunately is not ever going to come their way — or maybe one in a thousand.

It’s about bringing it back to reality. People can still be creative, try new ideas and have personalities and be good looking or whatever. But it really takes getting to work everyday, picking up the phone, talking to the farms, getting your stuff in, averting disasters, and cleaning the mud off the vegetables. That’s what you do. You’re peeling onions. We get kids in here and they’re asked to peel onions and they think it’s beneath them, but yet they can’t yet do anything else. They will someday.

Shifting the subject a bit, what effect does your writing have on your cooking?

I know that it has an effect, because if it’s coming from the mind, it’s there trying to communicate — whether through words or through something more tangible than an idea. It’s the same person, struggling to express something. It’s different, but it’s the same thing, because somewhere in there is a level of communication. Maybe you’ll get it because you’re more sophisticated and someone else won’t get all the layers of it.

I write because there are other things to express, and it’s mostly about process. It’s not about ‘this is my recipe’; it’s process. This is the process and this is how it relates to everything. If you want to make any kind of difference in your life, in this kind of situation, it’s got to make a difference to other people, because you’re asking them to join you: Give me your money and I’ll give you something, like a play or a movie. People interact with this thing, and they expect to be sustained by it, one way or the other. That’s what writing is about too.

A lot of people used to ask me what my college education has to do with this. I’m not sure [neuroscience] has anything to do with it exactly, but when you engage in a discipline, you can apply that to many things. It’s not the specifics of the discipline, but it’s pursuing something within a structure. Most of the time, chefs will tell you, there’s a personal satisfaction that comes from our ability to touch something really beautiful. In this case, it has to do with ingredients. That’s totally personal and hardly anything we can talk about. For me, the internal dialogue that happens when I have my hand on my ingredients is something I can hardly even express to my cooks. But people are interested in process. People always ask artists or actors how they do it. They want to ask chefs that, too, but they think that for chefs, it’s a recipe. “Here’s how I do it!”

But in fact, a recipe is the very last part — and that’s only if you’re super organized. That’s what I think people don’t get information about. That’s where I begin to write, and it helps me to communicate.

Where do you like to eat in San Francisco?

My house, only because of the atmosphere of being so comfortable and relaxed. I eat at Zuni because I’ve eaten there for 30 years, and I worked there. It’s a comfort zone. Things are well-considered. You know it’s not going to be tricky, and it’s good. I like to eat at Anthony Mangieri’s [Una Pizza Napoletana]. He’s like my brother in spirit. He puts his hands on that thing, and it’s transcendent.

I like the work of a lot of my colleagues, but sometimes when you work in this business, you’re really, really hungry in a way that’s different from normal ways that the public is hungry, so you’re looking for something that’s a little different. Chefs shouldn’t be asked where they eat. A lot of them like to promote their friends’ restaurants, but under normal chef circumstances where you’re working 60 to 80 hours, your motivations and your hungers are really different from a normal person. It’s just different.

I’m really interested in people that are doing honest work. It should move you. There are a lot of ingredients in a recipe, and fundamentally, that’s one of the “bottom up” ingredients. It’s got to move you, as a cook. It’s got to make some sort of difference.